Recent Movies

I've been working a lot of overtime and have gotten sick, so I haven't been reading much recently. However, I rented some movies to distract me from how rotten I felt, so here are some mini reviews:

Flying Scotsman

This is based on the life of Graeme Obree, a Scottish track cyclist who won the World Championship and broke the hour record while battling with depression. In theory, I am the target audience for this film. I love cycling. I love cycling films like Hell on Wheels, Overcoming, A Sunday in Hell, and even Wired to Win was pretty good. Track cycling isn't my favorite cycling discipline, but it's okay. And I know a bit about Obree, but not a lot, as I wasn't following cycling in the mid-nineties when this happened. I thought that I might like this movie, but I was bored.

It was a very typical sports movie. We have a flashback to his youth, where Graeme was bullied by his classmates, and finds that on a bicycle he can outpace them. We jump forward to find that he's down on his luck, working as a bike messenger because his bike shop has gone out of business. He meets another cyclist who encourages him to get back into competitive cycling, and on the spur of the moment he decides to attempt to break the hour record, building a bike of his own design out of parts he can scavenge. He succeeds, but faces depression and opposition from the governing bodies of cycling, who don't like his new design. He goes through rough times and eventually succeeds some more. Ho hum, ho hum.

This film was based on real life, but it felt like it was following the same blueprint of so many other sports films. The evil German cycling official was so over the top it was comical--and not believable. The acting was competent, and of course you're rooting for the poor guy to succeed, but I was just bored, and kept fast-forwarding. A very disappointing film.

Volver

I picked this one up completely on a whim, having a vague recollection that I'd heard it was good. Set in Spain, it follows the story of five women as they deal with issues like abuse, murder, and family secrets. And they do it with remarkable grace and humor. As odd as it sounds, it was actually a rather upbeat movie, and at times was even funny. It's also very moving in places. This is a movie for women, about women. However, for the men in the audience there are a few gratuitous shots of Penelope Cruz's admirable decolletage. This is a film that would be spoiled if I revealed too much, but I highly recommend it. The director's commentary was unfortunately disappointing, as he recites what's happening on the screen. Otherwise it was a great film.

Howl's Moving Castle

This is Hayao Miyazaki's adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones's novel of the same name. I wonder if I was hindered in my enjoyment of this film by the fact I've read the book. I don't think ths was a very faithful interpretation--in fact, I'd go so far as to say that Miyazaki seems to have taken the parts of the story that interested him and rewritten the rest, to the detriment of the film.

The protagonist of the book is Sophie, a rather serious young lady with a bit of magical talent who is cursed by the Witch of the Waste to become an old woman. Unable to explain to her family what happened (part of the curse is that she can't speak of it), she leaves the hat shop where she works and travels out of town. There, she encounters a scarecrow which creeps her out a bit, and she then moves into a large moving house owned by the wizard Howl. Sophie notes that one of the advantages of being an old woman is that you don't have anything to fear, and she becomes rather more assertive than she'd been before. She makes friends with Howl's fire demon, and decides that she's going to live here as the cleaning woman. Howl isn't consulted on the matter, she just settles in. Howl is a rather vain, selfish, and immature fellow, spending forever in his bathroom primping before going out to court ladies. Sophie grows impatient with his vanity and his absences as he's out searching for a particular lady. They eventually manage to avert a war, and it is discovered that Howl knew about her curse all along and had been trying to break it, but was unable to do so. She also solves a difficult matter between Howl and his fire demon, which she's able to do because she's got magical talent herself.

In the film, Sophie is cursed by the Witch of the Waste to become an old woman. She leaves her home, meets a scarecrow who becomes her ally, and it leads her to the magical house of Howl, where she makes a deal with the fire demon and settles in as a cleaning lady. Howl is a typical Japanese anime hero: ridiculously, delicately beautiful, silent and enigmatic, with flat affect and no apparent personality. Sophie immediately falls deeply in love, but doesn't realize it. Her age then acts like it's on a rheostat operated by a four year old, as she shifts frequently and erratically between a youthful and elderly appearance, and no one but Howl seems to notice. There is a war going on, and the cities are being fire bombed in the night. Howl goes out every night and turns himself into a bird/human/demon cross to battle against the enemy forces, but has trouble shifting back into a human in the morning. Oh, and they talk a bit about the stupidity of war. Fortunately, Sophie's love for Howl is sufficient to save the world, and in the process they find a missing prince, which ends the war, and the Howl/fire demon things turns out much more happily than in the book.

As I watched Howl's Moving Castle, I was struck by three things: First, that Miyazaki had taken an English story and turned it into a Japanese one, which isn't surprising but wasn't an improvement. Second, that it felt like I was watching Spirited Away again, except that this one wasn't as good. And third, that it didn't make a damn bit of sense. Somehow, in excising Jones's plot, he failed to devise a coherent idea to replace it. The film is visually interesting, though it looks a lot like Spirited Away, but ultimately it was just a pretty mess. My expectations of this film weren't high, but still I was disappointed.

Black Projects, White Knights by Kage Baker

Black Projects, White Knights is a collection of short stories set in Baker's Company universe. I've never managed to get through a Company novel, but I loved the non-Company Anvil of the World, so I thought I'd give this a try. As I've noted here before, I usually prefer novel-length fiction over short stories, but nevertheless I sometimes read story collections anyway.

The Company is a corporation from the future (or at least, it's the future to us) which has developed mastery over time travel and immortality. It has acquired agents throughout history and turned them into immortal cyborgs, sent out on missions to collect things the Company wants or can make a good profit on. This can involve such things as recovering works of art that would otherwise have been destroyed, or collecting samples of plants that will later become extinct. It's sort of a fun premise, with all of the world and all of history to have adventures in.

Which is why it's a bit lame how many of the stories are set in California. Really, with all the world and all of history to explore, why do we keep coming back to California? There are another four related stories set in London, and only a couple that are set elsewhere. Otherwise it's back to the sunny state again and again.

We are introduced to various Company agents, some of whom are likable, and others not. Some of the stories and told in first person, and it wasn't always clear to me which agent was narrating. I didn't like the London quartet about Alec, a very weird kid in a rather unpleasant future. It's always a bit hard for me to write a review of a story collection because it's made up of lots of scattered little bits rather than one plot with one set of characters. So I will be brief, and just say that I found it an entertaining read, even though I didn't like all the stories.

Just Wondering

Yesterday I picked up The Outback Stars by Sandra McDonald. It's a military SF novel about a Lieutenant whose ship was attacked. She managed to save the day, but she was badly wounded and much of the crew lost. After a few months of rehab, she gets herself a berth on another ship, which is, as the admiral and the book flap describe, an "unhappy ship." Then they go out and get into deep trouble.

A few months ago I picked up and quickly abandoned Dauntless by Jack Campbell. In it, a captain recently recovered from suspended animation must step in and lead everyone into battle because everyone who outranks him has been killed.

Last night I began The Depths of Time by Roger McBride Allen, in which the Chronologic Patrol ships defending a wormhole are attacked. One is completely destroyed, and the other badly damaged and stranded in another time, because they won't be allowed back to their own time now that they know something that happened in the future. There are also hints that things are going very badly on the colony planets, and that the stranded ship will somehow have to get involved.

I don't read much military SF because the story type tends to turn me off. I could speculate about why other people like it--facing adversity, individual heroism, possibly enemies you can kill without complicated moral questions--but I don't really want to go there. I don't read much of it, so I'm really not qualified to comment much on it, other than to say it doesn't work for me.

But I was wondering--are most military SF novels depressing as hell? Is it part of the story type to set the characters into a bad situation that's likely to get worse and let them try to struggle their way out of it? Are there cheerful, fun military SF novels out there? (I don't mean comedic, I mean more like Space Adventure) Anyway, just a random thought this morning. I probably won't continue the McDonald novel, and I haven't decided if I'll read more of the McBride Allen novel.

Halting State by Charles Stross

This is book 14 in the Hugo project.

Charles Stross is, for me, like Iain Banks in that sometimes I love his books and sometimes I bounce off. Halting State is one of the good ones.

It opens with an Edinburgh-based software company whose bank is burgled by a band of marauding orcs in a video game. The police are summoned, in the form of Sergeant Sue Smith, who thinks the crime is crazy and irrelevant but nonetheless does her best to investigate. Also sent to investigate is Elaine, a forensic accountant from an associated firm whose job it is to assign blame. As she isn't an expert on gaming, she hires Jack, unemployed gaming programmer, to be her guide. Together they fight crime, or try to.

The chapters alternate between the three characters' points of view. This works when they are all apart and doing things on their own, but is less effective when they are together, so that one scene is from one character's point of view, and then we jump into someone else's head for the next part. The novel is told in second person, which is really annoying at first until you learn to ignore it. Random sample: "You are sitting, half-asleep, in an armchair. Your eyes are closed and you feel very unsteady. Your head's full of a postviral haze, the cotton-wool of slowed reflexes and dulled awareness."

Halting State is set in the near future--2018. Things have apparently changed quite a bit in the intervening years. Scotland is now an independent country, sort of. Everyone wears glasses that act as screens, so that they can be online all the time, typing in the air before them on imaginary keyboards. The US, we are told, is now completely irrelevant in world politics. It's all about the EU and China and India these days. Taxis are mostly driven by computers. I wasn't particularly interested in the future Stross created, but the one and only neat thing was CopSpace--an alternate reality that could be overlaid on reality so that the police could see where crime scenes were, where offenders live, and reference police files while out in the streets. Cool, and reasonably believable, though not necessarily in 11 years.

Halting State is a romp. It's fast-moving and fun. It sort of reminded me of Spook Country by Gibson, but this has more SFnal content than Spook Country. I thoroughly enjoyed the first 290 pages--unfortunately, it's a 350 page book. At some point I got annoyed with the characters and the situation, but by then I was close enough to the end to finish anyway. There was one notable moment that shattered my willing suspension of disbelief--mild spoiler warning, though it was predictable from the beginning--Elaine spends the night at Jack's apartment. The next morning, rather than don her own, freshly-laundered suit which is presentable and the correct size, she decides instead to don Jack's ratty old combat pants and T-shirt, even though it's mentioned several times that she thinks Jack dresses very badly. Why? There was some nonsense about how her suit might be wrinkled, but I didn't buy it for a minute. OK, let me reconsider that for a moment...Hmmm....Nah, not even slightly believable.

Despite the ending, I enjoyed this one a lot. It will definitely go on my Hugo nominating ballot.

Warm Hands

I've been wanting to try colorwork for a while, and the coming of winter seemed like a good excuse to give it a try. I am a little disturbed, acutally, by the lack of mitten patterns online. Gloves seem much more common than mittens, and half of those are fingerless. I wonder if these designs are conceived by knitters who live in warm climates? I don't. Winters here are long and cold, and mittens are a must. I found a couple of Norwegian mitten patterns online and combined them them to make these.

After sock knitting, I was pleased by how fast they went. I didn't like my first attempt, so I ripped it out and tried again. I found an error in the pattern on the right mitten, which I corrected on the left mitten. The left mitten is also slightly larger than the right, so I apparently relaxed a bit as I went on. I don't care for the way the thumb is set in, so I will do things differently if I make more.

They were knit on size 4 double pointed needles. The grey yarn is Cascade 220 in color 8011, and the burgundy yarn is Araucania Nature Wool in shade 50. I love love love the Araucania yarn. It's hand-dyed and has subtle color gradations, and it's really rich and beautiful. It's also a slightly thinner yarn than the Cascade, which is why the thumbs are grey. I originally planned to make them burgundy, but wound up using the grey because it will be warmer.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

This is book 13 in the Hugo project.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with fantasy. I've been reading SF & Fantasy avidly for the last 25 years. Especially when I was younger, I read a lot of fantasy: Riddlemaster, Discworld, Earthsea, Thieves World, and Liavek. I read about the Deryni, the Black Company, Vlad Taltos, and Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. I read sword and sorcery from Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, and Karl Edward Wagner. I also read Extruded Fantasy Product like Brooks, Eddings, Dragonlance, and countless other generic, derivative, uninspired books. And I found, as I got older, that I liked fantasy less and less. I still snatch up every book that Pratchett and McKillip put out, but I don't read much new fantasy because my success rate on finding things that I'll like has been pretty low.

But when I hear consistently good things about a book from other experienced readers of the genre, I will sometimes try it out. The consensus I've heard on The Name of the Wind is that it doesn't suck. So when someone lent me a copy, I decided to add it to my reading list this fall.

And my conclusion is this: No, it doesn't suck. In fact, Rothfuss writes very well. The text flows invisibly and sucks you in, which is a rare quality in a first novel. I can certainly understand why a lot of people are saying good things about this book.

It has a few flaws--for one, it's a bit slow to get started. The novel starts in a tavern in a small town with few customers, and the innkeeper, a man with a past, is bored. Around page 30 there was some action and I hoped that the story was going to get going, but it turned out that this was all just a framing story for the innkeeper to tell the story of his life.

Secondly, it's much too long. The Name of the Wind is 650 pages long, and it's only the first third of the innkeeper's tale. The book essentially describes his education, at great and tedious length. I finally gave up at page 400 because I found that I was avoiding the book, looking for other things to do because I didn't want to go back to it. That's always a bad sign.

The beginning of The Name of the Wind reminded me a bit of Tolkien--the sort of story that is frequently interrupted to recite a song or rhyme to tell us ancient history. Kvothe's college experience felt a bit too Potter to me, what with one of the professors taking an immediate and irrational dislike to him and another student becoming his archenemy on day one for no good reason. Mostly, it was just way, way too long.

I am probably the wrong audience for The Name of the Wind. I suspect that I would have really liked it if I'd read it 20 years ago. It's a school story about a bright and capable main character, and is designed to try to suck you in emotionally. However, I'm not a teenager anymore (thank God), and I don't much enjoy reading about teen characters. And I have grown resistant to getting emotionally swept away by stories over the years, because it's exhausting and not much fun to get emotionally wrung out over people and situations that don't exist. Also, I can never turn off the critic in my head that asks questions like: if you're going to imitate Tolkien, why borrow one of his more annoying conceits rather than the good parts? These days I am too old, too cynical, and too impatient to be swept away by another mega fantasy series.

So I have to place The Name of the Wind in the same category as Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky and Peter Watts's Blindsight: books which I can see are technically well done, but which really don't float my boat. However, for readers who like that sort of thing, I think it's an unusually well-executed example of the type.

I doubt I'll nominate this for a Hugo, but I'll probably nominate Rothfuss for the Campbell Award.

Mainspring by Jay Lake

Book #12 in the Hugo project.

I wanted to like this book. I expected to like this book. But gad, how I hate books about teenage protagonists--stupid, inexperienced, awkward, falling all over themselves as they try to figure out which way is up. And a book about a teenage protagonist who is the Chosen One---yecch. Ooh, yecch. Ick, ick, hack, spit. Stuff like this is one of the reasons I rarely read fantasy any more.

Yes, I freely admit that I'm being unfair. But this book hits all the wrong buttons for me, and I'm an experienced enough reader to know what sort of stories annoy me.

However, it has a nice cover by Stephan Martiniere.

Vaccinated by Paul Offit

I read Vaccinated for the nonfiction book group I belong to. I've always been interested in disease, from the Black Death to the Influenza pandemic that occurred during World War I. It's a topic that interests me, and I expected to enjoy this book.

From its description, I expected Vaccinated to be a biography of Maurice Hilleman, a researcher who developed some very important vaccines for Merck. The book started out talking about Hilleman and his early work, interspersed with descriptions of work by doctors like Pasteur and Salk. And I enjoyed it--the first third of the book is quite interesting.

After that, though, I lost interest. It became a long litany of doctors and vaccines and how they were developed, followed by some discussion of political issues surrounding vaccines. The book does swing back to discussion of Hilleman toward the end, but by then I was reading at a skim. Other members of the group reported similar reactions--they enjoyed the beginning, and then lost interest in the middle.

Ultimately, I'm not sure who this book was written for: it's not really a biography, and it's not a detailed examination of the politics of vaccination, nor does it give a thorough or detailed history of how vaccines are created. It's a little bit of three different topics stuck together, and I suspect that most readers will be frustrated that it does three things badly rather than one thing well.